McKevitt planned to kidnap British lords, court told
Alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt planned to kidnap four members of the House of Lords and their sons and force them to go on hunger strike, a court heard today.
FBI agent David Rupert, the key witness in the trial of the suspected dissident republican terror chief, disclosed how he had plotted to take them prisoner in a bid to boost the 1981 fasts by Provisional inmates at The Maze prison in Co Antrim.
Mr Rupert claimed McKevitt, 53, spoke of his plans after they first met at a Co Monaghan hotel in September 1999.
He said: “During the hunger strike campaign he had the idea of kidnapping four British lords and their sons and putting them on a forced hunger strike while the hunger strikers went on to further their demands.”
The scheme hatched by McKevitt, who at the time was an alleged senior member of the Provos, was overruled by former Sinn Fein leader Ruairi O’Bradaigh, Mr Rupert said.
The former trucking company boss turned double agent is the prosecution’s star witness in the case against McKevitt, of Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, being heard at the special criminal court in Dublin.
McKevitt is charged with directing the Real IRA, the organisation which split from the provisional movement over the direction of the Northern Ireland peace process, and being a member of that terror group. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
During the second day of his evidence, Mr Rupert, who was paid €1.25m by the FBI and MI5 to infiltrate rogue republican outfits, said he eventually managed to meet McKevitt at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Even though several other top dissidents including Michael Donnelly, Seamus McGrann and Phil Kent were also present, Mr Rupert said that the conversation centred around him and McKevitt.
In a reference to the accused, he said: “I have been in business a long time and when you meet the man in charge it’s not hard to tell.”
Mr Rupert said he immediately took a liking to McKevitt who he described as “pretty personable”.
At the meeting, Mr Rupert said, McKevitt revealed his plans to set up a new terrorist organisation made up of the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, some members of the Irish National Liberation Army and defecting provisionals as well.
An army conference was held in June 1999 on a beach on the Innishowen Peninsula, featuring members of all those paramilitary groupings who were to form the new organisation under the banner of Oglaigh na hEireann (the IRA).
McKevitt’s position was not going to be head of the army council because he did not want the grouping to be known as his military unit. But Mr Rupert stressed that there was no doubt that he was recognised as the leader.
Retraining of Continuity IRA members was being held at this time in preparation for a new military campaign that was to be launched in the near future, Mr Rupert said.
Although the August 1998 Omagh bomb atrocity, which killed 29 people and two unborn babies, was claimed by the Real IRA, the court heard that dissident organisation had planned to split the blame with the CIRA.
The attack on the Co Tyrone town was in fact a joint operation between the two dissident wings, McKevitt allegedly said.
Mr Rupert told the court: “He claimed 20% responsibility for it and gave 80% to the Continuity IRA because the Real IRA had acquired the car and built the bomb but they had given it to the Continuity IRA to pick the target and deliver it.”
McKevitt was “horribly upset” after the outrage because one of his closest lobbyists, Francie Mackey, a member of the Real IRA linked 32 County Sovereignty Committee was from Omagh.
Amid confusion about where the car laden with the 500lb bomb should be parked, Mr Rupert said McKevitt told him: “The boys should have just driven it out of the country and let it go.”
Mr Rupert said that in the aftermath of the attack the agreement between the RIRA and CIRA to jointly claim responsibility was dashed when Mr O’Bradaigh, who had left the mainstream republican movement to head up the Continuity-linked Republican Sinn Fein, denounced the bombing.
“It really left the Real IRA in a hot spot,” Mr Rupert said.
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